How to succeed in the academic math world: put on a dress

A friend recently attended a big conference of American mathematicians. Out of 15 plenary speakers, roughly half were female. “There are women getting tenure-track jobs at Ivy League schools who, if they were men, would be stuck in a series of post-docs, each one at progressively lower quality institutions.” …

[A Berkeley professor recently noted:] “Practically, I hope that more of us can take a stand in their departments and voice the simple fact that any cis-white-male hire is a missed opportunity. (Yes, that’s a fact). ”

Striving for tenure at a top school in the mathematics world is crazy hard [also irrational, as I discuss here: “Adjusted for IQ, quantitative skills, and working hours, jobs in science are the lowest paid in the United States.”].

For cis-white-males who’ve invested 10+ years in education in hopes of winning one of the handful of good jobs in this field, why not identify as women, at least while at work?